Learning to Be a Man

twitter

Why is #HetereosexualPrideDay trending on Twitter? Well, because our world is becoming a place of hate and anyone that is different from you but asks for tolerance of their lifestyle, faith or skin color is immediately your enemy. Instead of embracing them, we push them away and try to raise ourselves up even higher.

The painful thing about #HetereosexualPrideDay trending on Twitter is that if you look at the posts, most are people complaining about how fucking stupid and hateful it is. People like me. What we seem to forget about Twitter is that every time we bitch about the stupidity of a particular hashtag in a tweet, we’re just giving it more power. It’s trending because a lot of people are doing the right thing and condemning it.

So I’d like to ask Twitter for their help. We need a way to negate a hashtag. A way for us to talk about a trend or a tag that is bullshit and should die, without promoting it. I’m simplifying, as I’m sure it’s far more complex, but every time a hashtag is used it adds to its value and the higher the value, the higher it trends. But what if we could mention a hashtag and the system recognizes it as a negative mention and that takes away it’s power? Sort of like down voting a hashtag.

I think we’d all get behind that, no?

Something like this -#HetereosexualPrideDay. Just a simple minus sign in front tells Twitter that this hashtag is loathed and hated and it should die. Then each time it gets a positive mention (#HetereosexualPrideDay) and moves up the trend ladder, someone will tweet a negative mention (-#HetereosexualPrideDay) and pull that fucker right back down a rung.

Share your thoughts. Let’s get Twitter to help us fight hate by telling them this is #NotMyHashtag.

I'm a writer in Los Angeles. I'm in my mid-thirties and I'm still trying to figure out what it means to be a man. Come here to watch me fuck it up.
You can read some of my writing at The Way I Remember It. If you're looking for a digital agency check out my company Something Creative. And last, but not least, if you're a dog owner and want some of the most amazing dog sh*t bags, check out my company Biz Bagz.